Friday, January 18, 2013

Friday's Fashion Fallout: a handbag, a trip, and a marriage

"Ten years ago today some of my new friends in London invited me to see Star Trek: Nemesis. Best decision I ever made. I sat next to the most wonderful man I've ever met."

(aka, the guy she married!)

Is there a British spelling
for the word "ugly?"

I visited my friend and stayed with her in London a couple months after she met this guy, and we had a fantastic time romping around the UK. One of my favorite memories of that trip was going to Harrod's and having high tea. We had too many scones with clotted cream, the strongest tea I'd ever had with too much cream and too many brown sugar cubes....it was just wonderful. We were shaking at the end from the caffeine and the sugar! I can't believe it was ten years ago.

After all of that we went down to the shopping halls in Harrods and I must've bought about $100 worth of teas, mugs, and of course, a handbag.

Have you ever felt pressure to get the stererotypical souvenir from somewhere you've visited? I felt like I needed to bring something home that had the Harrod's logo on it but hated the typical green oilcloth bags. So I got this handbag. It had the logo, and matched my preferred handbag style--black and boring.

Label as souvenir. Why do
I keep doing this to myself?

Which I've ended up hating. It's too narrow, too deep, and the straps are too long. I still have much of the tea from that trip, in fact I made some this morning before I read her post. Now I'm staring at the tea I'm finishing now and being shocked that 1.) it's ten years old, and 2.) the ten-year-old tea still tastes this good! I can and will reuse the tea tins, so I don't need to keep the handbag as a souvenir because I have other things to remind me of that trip. But, oh, the nostalgia! The wonderful memories of that vacation! The smells, the tastes....

None of which are actually captured in the handbag. I can let it go. Breathe....Wow. You'd think after decluttering this much stuff this would be easier. It doesn't seem to be. I logically know that there's no good reason to keep this bag, yet my heart really wants me to.

I think it ended up being a full pound of loose leaf. Not really all that much given that I drink tea every day. I've been using it slowly because I didn't want to run out. Guess I've used it a little too slowly!